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Published: August 9th 2006
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LAKE TEKAPO
Beautiful view of the lake and town. Hello everyone. We were so taken by our Cessna flight that much of what we have been up to since, seems dull in comparison; hence the delay in writing this, our latest update.
Our two night stay in Lake Tekapo was mainly a relaxing chill out couple of days, which we spent just wandering around the small lakeside village, visiting a lovely wee church. (It's great here in NZ, everybody uses Scottish words like 'wee' and mingin') and staying in the hostel in the evenings, where we met some nice fellow travellers.
We then moved on, back to Christchurch again. Once more we managed to obtain a great deal on a hotel (through a good website called 'ratestogo' which provide some some incredible discounts.) We were ina 5-star place at backpacker prices - very posh. Over the weekend we saw a very entertaining Scottish singer (from Kirkaldy, no less) whose gimmick was to have his songlists (2 or 3 hundred songs) on the bar and tables and invite the punters to request songs from it. For Ken's Dunfermline relatives and friends he even had "The Kelty Clippie" on the list. We obviously had to hear it. As we said,
LAKE TEKAPO
View from church window. Who needs stained glass? a very entertaining night.
Saturday saw the 150 anniversary celebrations of Christchurch's beginnings. A fun day in the town square, the centrepice of which was a 150 metre birthday cake! Lots of music and jugglers etc. We ended up having a quiet night back at the hotel watching International rugby with a few drinks.
A quiet Suinday found us watching the new Superman movie and not much else. The following day we hired a car and travelled to the Banks Peninsula to a beatiful little place called Akaroa. Unfortunately we arrived just too late to go out on a dolphin watch cruise. This however turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as you will discover shortly.
A few drinks in the evening and it was up early the next morning to return the car and get on the Magic Bus to Kaikoura where we stayed at a wonderful , wonderful backpacker's place called Lyell Creek Lodge. The main attraction is the free roast dinner that the host Steve cooks every night for the dozen or so people in the hostel (it's more like a big house.) Other attractions include his back garden where he has a sheep
AKAROA
Sea and mountains and a river in which there are trout, ducks and huge eels which feed on all, and we mean all, of the leftover dinner scraps.
The highlight of our stay in Kaikoura was a whale watching cruise. The weather was terrific, and within 10 minutes of setting off we were watching this huge whale just off our port side swimming and blowing water metres into the air. After about 5 or 6 minutes of this it then dived deep into the water showing the tell tale tail flip. During the next 90 minutes we managed to see four more of these beasts (albeit all of them doing exactly the same routine.) As if that were not enough, however, the boat suddenly sped off, as the captain had spotted a pod of dolphins. Well, if there was one dolphin, there must have been two hundred of them. What a sight. They were jumping and diving and somersaulting all around the boat. Linda became so tired of trying to get the perfect picture that she gave up and just enjoyed the spectacle. Absolutely Bloody Marvellous. During the cruise we also saw albatross, seals and many other assorted wildlife. Great trip.
KAIKOURA
The stream in our hostel garden. Feeding time. After our two days at Kaikoura, it was off to Picton for our ferry crossing to Wellington. On the way to Picton we stopped to go and see some seal cubs playing in this natural pool of a river. To see these cubs playing you would swear that they knew they had an audience.
The ferry crossing itself was pretty spectacular, and Wellington is a nice city if somewhat too big to get a real feel for. Highlights of our time here have been a visit to the national museum, a stroll round the civic centre, a train journey up the coast to visit a friend of Linda's sister, and a fine session in an Irish bar on Friday evening, at the end of which we almost received a round of applause from the bar staff for still being standing, let alone still talking sensibly!!
For those of you in the UK experiencing good hot weather, it has rained here for the last 2 days. But no matter we are still, as you can tell, having a good time.
It is now Monday, Linda is off visiting a long lost aunt, and Ken is writing this. We
KAIKOURA
The signature goodbye from a whale diving. are off to Napier tomorrow, where we will place some of the many photos covering this part of our World tour on to the diary. Now done!
Cheers,
Ken & Linda
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Meg
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HI FROM THE SUNSHINE COAST
Good to hear from you..........obviously New Zealand is just getting more beautiful every year. I hear it is rather "chilly" there at present, the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia has stunningly beautiful weather at present.......24 degrees - it that winter!! Take good care of each other and we (Clyde, Chris, June and I) are all still trying to play tennis on a Wednesday night. Love Meg